Earth Week :: The Digital Farm Collective

Earth Week is a good time to reflect on all that Mother Nature gives us, and, as small-time backyard gardeners, we’re thankful for the few things we can grow each season. Learning how to take care of plants, watching things grow and flourish, and sharing time together outside are all things I’m thankful for. Plus, spending time outside means less time sitting around watching TV, although I’m still a sucker for some 30 Rock and Friday Night Lights.

This week at work, our “Green Team” brought in a speaker named Matthew Moore who started a project called the Digital Farm Collective. Matt is a fourth generation farmer in Arizona who also loves art. He’s working on an online archive to compile footage of every cultivated plant in the world. Pretty awesome, right? Using art to inspire social change, he asks farmers to pass on their knowledge through time-lapse photography of a plant from seed to harvest. His videos were featured at Sundance in 2010 and in the produce departments of some grocery stores. Here’s one of the “lifecycles” videos he shared with us. There are plenty more on his blog.

Matt asks people if they would change their eating behaviors if they knew one head of broccoli took 105 days to harvest or squash took 55 days. Would we waste less or appreciate farmers more or understand better where our food comes from? I think so.

Matt also left some seed packets for everyone to take home. These are probably the coolest seed packets I’ve seen with photography of the plant through it’s lifecycle. I took a squash packet, so I’m looking forward to getting the seeds planted soon.

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One response to this post.

I went to Matthew Moore’s blog and watched the seeds grow into plants. It was interesting to watch plants grow so quickly. I love to plant seeds and watch them grow. I also have a difficult time throwing seedlings away that I can’t use. That is why I always have so many plants to give away.